Ultrasound #2 (aka the 3 week late update) …

Finally getting around to writing about the 2nd ultrasound, which happened May 17th. Sorry it took me 3 weeks to do so. Whoops.

This time I flew into San Diego, and drove the 150 miles to the clinic. Since I have family in the area, I chose to fly down the night before the appointment and spend a couple of days, rather than repeat the whirlwind trip from 2 weeks earlier. Unfortunately, this made for a very long day in the car–especially since it’s almost impossible to go through LA twice during daylight hours without hitting traffic.

The appointment was set for noon, and I got to the clinic parking lot at 11:40. My husband was in Germany for work, but called for a minute to say that he was back in the hotel room and available for a Skype call. I told him I’d try to use Skype mobile on my phone to contact him, but I wasn’t sure if the cell reception in the office would be up to the task. If that didn’t work out, though, I had already arranged with the Nurse Coordinator for part of the ultrasound to be recorded and e-mailed to me so he could listen to the heartbeats later.

When I walked in to the clinic, I was surprised to not see our GS. It was only 10 minutes before the scheduled appointment, and she had been early for the previous 2 appointments. The real shocker came when I checked in, though, and was told that the ultrasound had already started. Apparently the NC interpreted my GS showing up 30 minutes early by herself and my request for a recording to mean that I wasn’t going to attend the ultrasound (even though I had communicated my intent to do so the previous day via e-mail). I’m not even embarrassed to admit that I almost ran over the poor woman whose duty it was to guide me to the correct room. I had, after all, driven 3 hours that morning to get there–and did not want to miss any more of the ultrasound than I already had.

My entrance interrupted the recording, but at least there was good news available–Dr. K had already looked at both babies, and they were doing great. He was more than happy to stop things for a moment (although our GS probably wasn’t quite as thrilled, given that this was not an abdominal ultrasound) while I connected with my husband via Skype. I held the phone up to the monitor’s speaker so he could listen to the heartbeats for the first time, as well as Dr. K’s commentary on each of the babies. Even though he had seen the pictures from the previous ultrasound, at that moment, I think the pregnancy finally became “real” to him. I also think that whoever invented Skype deserves an award for giving us that amazing moment.

7 hours’ worth of driving for 7 minutes’ worth of time with the doctor, our GS, and the babies. Totally worth it. 😀